


5 times Natasha Romanoff was there for Peter Parker, and the 1 time he was there for her

by starkcontrast



Series: Natasha's Kids [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (we love & support may here too ladies), 5+1 Things, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Awesome Natasha Romanov, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Domestic Avengers, Hurt Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Other, Parent Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Avengers, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Tony Stark, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, nat being the maternal figure that Peter needs and deserves, no beta we die like ben, spider mom - Freeform, ребенок паук
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkcontrast/pseuds/starkcontrast
Summary: The last person the Avengers expected Natasha Romanoff to bond with was teenage spider-boy genius Peter Parker. After all, Natasha is a cold-hearted assassin with little to no regard for anyone other than herself... right?Or, perhaps she might prove everyone- even herself- wrong. Every ребенок паук needs a мама паук.





	1. Introduction

Thanks for clicking on this story! 

This is my first fic on AO3, so sorry if anything is formatted weirdly or seems a little unorganized. I'm still trying to maneuver my way around. Until the first chapter of this is published (soon!), you can find me on Wattpad at themikaelsonclan! If you drop a follow saying that you're frond AO3, I'll follow you back :-)

Alright, moving on... welcome to: 5 times Natasha Romanoff was there for Peter Parker, and the 1 time he was there for her. Be prepared for heartache, angst, fluff, but so much cute!peter x mom!natasha. I promise I'll try not to disappoint! 

Until next time.


	2. 1.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has a panic attack, alone, during his unexpected first night in the Avengers Compound. He just so happens to run into Natasha. Needless to say, he leaves a lasting impression on her, and the super spy/assassin can’t help but want to uncover more about the kid.

1.

On Sundays like today - dark, gloomy and filled to the brim with an overbearingly dense fog, Natasha Romanoff would normally spend 95% of her time in the training center, whether it be practicing judo or kung-fu or karate or any other martial art in existence. It was a way to rid her mind of the incessant thoughts that often swirled around aimlessly. It’s not that they were inherently bad thoughts, no, but just the pesky thoughts alone are infinitely exhausting and an utter waste of energy, in Natasha’s opinion. She felt as though her productivity was put to better use when she was doing something worth her (and other’s) time. The training room was her element.

Similarly, Tony would usually find himself working away the day in his lab alongside Bruce and a chatty FRIDAY. He would spend hours upon hours looking for new ways to enhance his iron suit of armor, flipping through textbooks that covered sciences that only few people in the world could ever possibly grasp. 

But there was something about today that was just off kilter. The atmosphere in the Compound, perhaps? Was Tony experimenting with mercury again? Whatever is was... something was different. 

Or… maybe the only strange thing happening was that Natasha was currently sitting in the common room whilst a pay per view movie played in the background- instead of her usual training escapades, and that Tony was actually asleep for once. 

Yeah. That was definitely it. 

Peter Parker, on the other hand, had lost all concept of time and space around him. It was a Sunday, so Tony had decided to let him work on web fluid upgrades in his personal lab instead of sneaking into school like he normally did- a tidbit of information that he had inadvertently revealed to the billionaire on a bit of a rambling tangent. After that, he decided to just let the young prodigy work on the weekends under the namesake of his ‘personal intern,’ in case any of the Avengers or miscellaneous personel ran into him. 

Peter felt like he was quite literally living in a dream. He got to work with chemicals and various parts and substances that he would never come into contact with otherwise, all the while breathing the same air as his personal heroes! So, when Tony gave him a lanyard with special access pass, there was absolutely no way he could humbly turn it down. Come on… he was most certainly polite, but he wasn’t that stupid. 

In all honesty, he might have been having so much fun that time had gotten the better of him…

After adding the last graduated cylinder filled with 5mL of glycerine (a thick chemical used for making things like soap and bombs) into the beaker, and stirring it with a glass rod, Peter let out a quiet yelp of joy and fist pumped the air. It worked! - somewhat, at least! The consistency was spot-on, but the overall elasticity could be improved. With a relaxed huff of air, Peter stood up from the swivel chair and stretched. 

God, his back was stiff. How long had he been in there?

The boy looked over at the wall clock, nodding his head as it read ‘2:02am.’ 

“Wait- TWO IN THE MORNING?!” Peter yelped, fumbling fingers reaching wildly for his phone. His eyebrows furrowed as he realized he only had one missed call from May. What the heck? Shouldn’t she be freaking out and calling half the police departments in the entire state of New York by now?

“Not to worry, Mr. Parker. I have been programmed to send a text from your phone number if you spend more than three-and-a-half hours at a time in the lab. Miss Parker received a text at six o'clock this evening.”

A sigh of relief fell from his lips, though it was quickly replaced with unsettlement. “FRIDAY… how long have I been in here?”

The AI took its time with responding. “Eleven-and-a-half hours, Mr. Parker. I would suggest several ounces of fluids and perhaps a banana, per my instructions from the Baby Statistics protocol, as well as a good night’s rest.”

Rest sounded like the name of a foreign film that Peter would watch in Spanish class. Rest? Sleep? Eat? Drink? How was he supposed to do that? He couldn’t even go home if he wanted to, since Mr. Stark was actually asleep for the first time probably a week, and the kid wouldn’t dare to wake him up from that since he knew what it was like to be so freaking tired yet so damn terrified of falling asleep for fear of what nightmares it would send spiraling at him. Maybe the classic, Ben, or perhaps the building that collapsed on him, or even his worst nightmare, May dying. There were infinite options to torture him with, after all. Millions of bad memories to replay over and over again.

The boy let a heavy breath escape his lips, his knees suddenly feeling weaker and weaker as the seconds passed. He began to hear the ticking from the two clocks on opposite sides of the lab, the droning of the ventilated air, the excess bubbling from his web reaction, all the while droplets of rain slammed against the windows and seemed to shake all of the molecules that made up his body and it was all too much, too much, too much.

His legs finally gave up as Peter slid down the wall he had backed up into, his head falling into his now clammy (yet so terribly cold) hands. His mind traveled to May, wondering if she had gotten home okay in the rain storm, or if she suspected anything from the text that FRIDAY sent out. Then his mind pivoted, wondering where he would sleep or if anyone would question why Tony’s child intern is spending the night. Maybe they would find out that he’s an orphan that lives with his widowed aunt and got bitten by a radioactive spider and watched his uncle die and then became Spider-Man and that he’s only a highschool student and maybe they would think that he’s in no way cut out for the world of superheroes and aliens and… 

God, Peter’s mind was racing at a thousand miles a minute, and soon his breathing became awkward, shallow and uneven. His hand traveled to his chest, clutching his science-pun-clad t-shirt.

“Mr. Parker, it appears that you’re experiencing a panic attack. Should I alert Boss?” FRIDAY’s sudden voice asked with a surprising amount of concern. 

“No! No, no, it’s fine. I-I’m fine. Don’t wake up Mr. Stark, please,” Peter quickly replied, struggling to force the words out of his lungs. “I’m just gonna go get some water,” he stated with a labored sigh. “Yeah. Water sounds nice.”

The boy forced himself to get up no matter how much his body resisted as the awful, achy feeling coursed through his veins and riddled his bones. It was deafening. 

Peter took the elevator up to the main floor where the kitchen was, along with a common area equipped with a huge flatscreen TV and insanely comfortable couch, according to Mr. Stark. Peter had never actually spent much time in the Avengers Compound before. He usually only stopped by for a few fours - three at the maximum - and then was delivered back to Queens by Happy, just in time for dinner. 

So, his regularly heightened senses seemed to be a raging mess from all of the new around him.

It’s a good thing no one’s awake at this unholy hour, the kid thought to himself.

Peter ventured out of the elevator, eyes scanning the meticulously organized yet homey area. Most lights were off, though the ones near the TV were simply dimmed. The boy let out a stiff breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. The soft lights were easier on his eyes, and allowed him to partially let his guard down, which eased the knot of anxiety in his stomach. 

Peter’s feet padded down the hallway, footsteps muffled by his socks as he left his shoes, jacket and backpack inside the lab for now, as his plan was to spend the rest of the night working on one last round of web fluid. Hopefully that would occupy his mind until Mr. Stark woke up.

Suddenly, as he entered the kitchen and waddled over to the refrigerator, a voice sent his heart into a spastic frenzy. 

“You have three seconds to tell me who you are.”

Peter snapped his head around, coming face-to-face with a redheaded woman with green eyes that he could have swore were piercing right into his skull. “I-I’m Mr. Stark’s personal intern! I’m so, so sorry if I woke you up, I was just on my way to get some water and maybe a banana or something since FRIDAY told me she would tell Mr. Stark if I didn’t. I must have lost track of time down in the lab because one second it was five in the afternoon and the next time I looked up it was two in the morning! Anyways, please don’t kill me, Ms. Romanoff, Black Widow, ma’am!” the boy whisper-yelped with raised hands and flushed cheeks, his ‘Stark Industries’ ID card inadvertently displayed in the lanyard that swayed across his quivering chest.

“Okay... Hey, you’re fine, kid. Relax,” Natasha sighed, slowly lowering her hand off of the gun that rested in her side pocket. This must be the boy that Tony goes on and on about all the time. Under normal circumstances, Natasha would ignore anything and everything that came out of the man’s mouth, but even Pepper had nothing but doting things to say about him. “What the hell are you doing here at this hour? Shouldn’t you be at home? Or at the very least, be in bed?”

Peter felt the familiar sensation of instability in his knees again, so he took to gently leaning against the countertop (which didn’t go unnoticed by Natasha). “Well, uh, Mr. Stark lets me work in his lab when I need to… do s-special intern assignments and stuff like that, but I must have gotten carried away. It gets really quiet in the lab when Mr. Stark isn’t there. Time just sort of blends together, y’know?” he awkwardly chuckled, still feeling like Ms. Romanoff might kill him any second now. 

Natasha, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest, quirked a studious eyebrow at the kid as she nodded in acknowledgement. “You look a little pale.”

Peter gulped. Of course the woman noticed! She was a badass super spy, and the boy practically idolized her - second to Mr. Stark, that is. “Oh, it’s probably just because I haven’t had anything to eat all day. It’s not a big deal, I’m totally, a-million-percent fine. I could swim the entire length of the Nile river and then uh swim across the Atlantic ocean and back home, heh.”

However, in pure Parker luck, as soon as the words left his mouth his knees buckled yet again as a wave of lightheadedness came over him. At this point Peter couldn’t tell if it was his anxiety, his enhanced metabolism screaming at him after not putting anything in his stomach all day, or just the pure shock of talking to Ms. Romanoff. 

Natasha was hesitant in walking up to the kid and putting a loose arm around his waist to keep him upright, but she did just that. Truth be told, she really had no idea what came over her. He just seemed so damn exhausted. So, she led him into the common area and let him fall onto the plush sofa instead of the cold tile floor. God, Natasha could practically hear the boy’s lungs struggling to capture and distribute air. 

“Thanks,” Peter said bashfully, just now noticing how interesting the floor seemed.

“Don’t worry about it.” Natasha shrugged it off, standing in front of the kid with more curiosity than ever. “Just stay here for a second, okay? Otherwise you might actually pass out.”

Before Peter could respond, she was gone. He began wondering what she could possibly be up to. Maybe she was walking to the elevator right this second, on her way to wake up Mr. Stark (or even worse, the rest of the currently sleeping Avengers). Then he’d really feel awful, worrying the people he has looked up to since early childhood - and still looked up to, maybe even more so now that he knew how tiring it was to protect the innocent citizens of Queens (though he wouldn’t trade it for the world). 

Approximately two-and-a-half minutes into his rambunctious thought process, however, Peter could hear the drumming of feet against the hard ground, and he really hoped it was the scary redheaded woman and not someone else, which was something he genuinely never expected to be thinking.

Thankfully, something finally managed to go Peter’s way that night.

“What kind of movies do you like?” Natasha asked, emerging from the kitchen with a large glass of water and a bowl of popcorn. She gingerly handed it to the boy before taking a seat on the couch beside him.

Peter had to do a double-take after seeing the Black Widow thoughtfully hand him a midnight snack. Not fifteen minutes earlier the woman had her hand hovering over her gun as she interrogated him. “Huh?”

“A movie. How young are you, exactly?”

“No, I-I know what a movie is. I just don’t know why you’d want to watch a movie with me.”

Natasha let out a delicate sigh, studying the boy’s slumped shoulders and upturned eyebrows. There was something about him that just seemed too innocent for the world, yet his eyes seemed to hold scars from experiences that Natasha was sure he was much too young to have gone through. The Black Widow was in no way going soft for this kid she just met. She was just simply curious, that’s all. “You seem like you have a lot going on in your head - something you and Tony both have in common, by the way. Sometimes you need a movie to distract yourself for a while.”

A soft smile appeared on his face, and Peter found himself starting to relax as he sank deeper into the couch, which made the corner of Natasha's mouth twitch upward. “O-oh. Thanks. Well, I like anything, I guess. I dunno, I don’t really have a preference. Whatever you’re watching is cool with me!”

“I really don’t think you want to watch ‘Savage Hunt of King Stakh,’ a 1980s horror movie that’s completely in Russian. Come on, what do you like watching? I’m sure there’s something you do in your free time when you’re not mixing chemicals or building god-knows-what down in the lab with Tony.”

Peter felt a blush spread across his cheeks. “I like… I like Disney movies? Mulan, The Lion King, The Jungle Book, stuff like that. I used to watch them with my mom and dad.”

He chuckled reminiscently, but Natasha watched as his eyes glistened ever so slightly under the dim lights, and the way he bit down on his cheek with an almost unnoticeable jut of his jaw. 

Natasha decided she wouldn’t pry on that topic. 

Peter was quick to speak up again, clearing his throat of any trace of prior emotion. “Mulan is probably my favorite, though. I mean, it’s a visual masterpiece and people pay it dust! 1998 and those graphics? Come on, it was way ahead of its time. Oh my gosh and that little dragon guy, Mushu? He was totally a main protagonist and no one can tell me otherwise. You know that line that goes ‘dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow!’? Agh, that was so awesome,” Peter rambled as he munched on a few handfuls of popcorn, and the paleness of his cheeks seemed to retreat, even if only by a little bit.

“Alright, Mulan it is,” Natasha said, archly, and Peter seemed pleased with her decision. 

Natasha scrolled through Netflix, pressing play as it finally came into view. As if pre-programmed (it definitely was, thanks to Tony and his equal bouts of insomnia), FRIDAY dimmed the lights just a tad bit more, and Natasha passed the boy a blanket as she fished two out of the wicker basin beside the couch, which he graciously accepted. 

“Hey, Ms. Romanoff?” Peter’s quiet voice piped up over the introduction.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. You’re really nice.”

Natasha almost had to force herself to stifle a grin that could have appeared. She tried to think of the last time someone had actually called her that. ‘Scary’ and ‘borderline psychotic’ were common, but ‘nice’ was a new one - though she didn't quite mind it. “Don’t say that too loud, or I might have to kill you,” the redhead teased, but the mildly terrified expression on Peter’s face made her chuckle in amusement as she turned her head to face him. “Kidding. And you can call me Natasha.”

A glint of happiness appeared in the boy’s brown eyes. “Sure thing, Ms. Natasha… and I-I’m Peter.”

The woman smiled to herself. 

The movie began, and a mutual wave of silence settled over them as they both seemed to zone out of reality. It was a much needed a break from the world, even though it was only for an hour and forty-five minutes. Natasha relaxed into the couch, a blanket drawn over her lap and one leg crossed over the other, while Peter, on the other hand, had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders with bits of popcorn strewn around his immediate space. 

And as the movie played, the two restless souls found themselves enjoying the stillness of their surroundings for once, instead of dreading it. The usual loneliness and unsurety that came with it, wasn’t there. Peter even forgot about the mind-numbing panic attack that he had experienced not even an hour earlier. All he was focused on was his favorite movie playing on a one-hundred-ten-inch TV and the safety and security he felt while sitting next to Natasha.

And she felt the same.

Sure, sometimes she and Tony would have the same periods of nightmare-induced restlessness, but the man always spent his time working away the fear in his lab for hours and hours on end. Natasha occasionally found herself wandering into his lab and just taking a seat, finding comfort in the duality of their mutual presence.

But this felt different. A different kind of comfort.

Though she didn’t know how old Peter was exactly, he seemed young enough. Definitely younger than any of the current Avengers. Natasha knew what is was like to be young and frightened, and Natasha could tell that Peter had been through his fair share of experiences. She didn’t want him to feel as she had at his age. 

She almost wanted to protect him, as foreign a thought as that was. 

That thought only increased as the movie drew to a close, and Natasha looked to her left to see Peter’s eyes begging to stay open for just a little while longer, though it was evident that he seemed to be losing that fight. 

“You can sleep on the couch, Peter, it’s okay. I’ll make sure Tony wakes you up in time to get home for school. Just make sure you remember to take your backpack out of the lab before you go; it seems like something you’d need.”

“Thankyou, Ms. Rom’no- Natasha,” Peter mumbled and, in his half-asleep state, willed himself to say one more thing before pure, unadulterated exhaustion overtook him. It seemed like it was important, so Natasha let him continue. “I like Mulan because she’s not an antiquated, stereotypical Disney princess. She’s diff'rent - more determined, more to lose, more... spirit than anyone else, I guess. I-” he yawned, “can’t think of the word right now, but I could totally be saying something super smart and inspirational; just pretend. Mulan was an underdog, but she was just as much a hero as any of the Princesses are - if not, more,” Peter continued, and Natasha’s lips drew into a half-smile as she continued to listen. “And she reminds me of you.”

The woman froze, almost not trusting her ears to have interpreted it correctly.

As Peter’s curls pressed against the sofa, eyes drooping every few seconds, he smiled. “Mulan s’awesome.”

The boy’s eyelids began to sink like anchors, and eventually they finally stayed shut. Natasha decided she would sit by his side for just a while longer, even if it was simply to monitor his breathing. The hour drew later, the night stiller, and not once did Peter stir. He was so deeply asleep that, even when his head slipped from the sofa’s back cushion onto Natasha’s shoulder, he remained sleeping. 

As she gently moved an arm to subtly curl around his shoulders, letting his head remain tucked into the crook of her neck, Natasha’s eyes drifted down to the kid, watching as his adorably nerdy science t-shirt rose and fell with each slow breath that he took. And for a second, she began to understand what Tony saw in him. 

Peter Parker was certainly something different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry this took so long, I've just been going through it recently lol. But nonetheless, I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter! I worked really, really hard on it, and it probably took a total of 5/6+ hours to write. I just wanted to make sure the dialogue wasn't too forced and that it was true to their character. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought of it - good or bad! Thank you guys for reading :)


	3. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a stressful day at school, Peter welcomed a Friday afternoon of patrolling with open arms. However, he might have overexerted himself. Natasha is there to help him with his strange and seemingly unwarranted injuries. (this is literally just several thousand words of pure descriptive fluff, so have fun!)

2. 

“Thanks, Happy, see ‘ya on Monday morning!” Peter shouted, wincing as he hopped out of the back of the man's car. Once the car was out of sight down the long, winding road, Peter released the stiff, shaky breath he had been holding in. After standing in place for a few more moments and attempting to calm his stupid lungs, he limped over to the side of the Compound in a few rounds of breathless steps, stopping to release a whimper, and then continuing. There was no way in hell that he could have made it all the way up to the entrance in one consistent line, without passing out in the process. Regardless, the Avengers _must_ be asleep by now - or at least much too far away to hear his grunts of pain. Truth be told, in that moment Peter didn’t even freaking care about maintaining his secret identity in front of the Avengers. Everything hurt too much to care, to think, to _move_.

“Jeez, when did bad guys start being so violent?” Peter muttered under his breath as he reached the porch’s overhang. Peter entered his 12-digit pin, scanned his ID badge, then scanned his palm print, and finally entered his “code name” that Mr. Stark so ingeniously gave him.

It was ‘Underoos!’ The exclamation point was very important, by the way. 

Once he was cleared for entry, he silently stepped inside the building and tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt, grimacing as he struggled to maintain a steady limp over to the elevator.

“Mr. Parker, you seem to be hurt. From a visual scan, your shoulder seems to be dislocated, and you have multiple lacerations to your forearms and legs. Should I alert Boss and prepare the medbay for your arrival?”

Peter shut his eyes for a moment, scrunching his nose in frustration. Seriously… all he wanted was to get up to his floor, walk into his temporary room that Mr. Stark had called a storage closet at one point, and pass out on the comfortable sofa bed that was twice the size of Peter’s actual bed in Queens. “That’s okay, Friday, old buddy, old pal, I can reset my shoulder once I get upstairs, and the cuts will heal on their own. I don’t think we need to let Mr. Stark know about this, right? I mean, think about it, Friday. Do you want Mr. Stark to be in a bad mood in the morning when he’s working on your upgrades? If I served as incognito jesus, I would take a spa day.”

Friday was silent for a moment, and if AIs could logically have awkward pauses, this would be one of those moments. Peter fiddled with the straps of his backpack as his eyes traced over the tiles on the ground. “So…”

“I will allow you access to the main floor-”

“YES!” Peter fist-bumped the air (as much as he could with the whole ‘dislocated shoulder’ situation). “Friday, I love you so much. I promise, by the end of the night, my shoulder will be reset and the cuts will already be halfway healed.”

Peter couldn’t even tell if the AI responded because he had already hobbled into the elevator and pressed the button for the common area. Before he went up to his unofficial room to work on his injuries, the kid would need some _serious_ painkillers and coffee. The coffee wasn’t for any sleeping (or… you know, lack thereof) purposes, but in history class he learned that it was actually used as a natural painkiller in 1949, so it couldn’t hurt. Other natural painkillers include ginger, salmon, tart cherries, and echinacea and sage. But he didn’t like the sound of those things. 

The elevator was prompt in delivering Peter to the third floor, so, with a pained grunt, he pushed himself forward and stumbled into the unlit hallway. Peter’s eyes squinted as he trailed one hand against the wall and let the other grasp his - most likely fractured - lower right ribs. Once the faint light of the kitchen came into view, he let out a sigh of relief and immediately veered toward the coffee pot. 

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any coffee. He didn’t know why he was surprised - it was literally the middle of the night. Like, why would there be a fresh pot of coffee, steaming and ready for the taking, at _night?_

Nonetheless, Peter let out yet another groan of existential frustration and hopped up onto the counter to give his aching legs a rest, though the sudden motion sent a jolt of pain throughout his dislocated shoulder. Swiftly and without really knowing what the hell he was doing, Peter placed a pot full of water on the stove and cranked up the heat to get it boiling. Then, he placed a new coffee filter into the machine and dumped in a hefty amount of ground Colombian coffee beans. He assumed that the next step was just to add the hot water, so he let his back slump against the cabinets - careful not to jostle his shoulder - while he waited for the bubbles to emerge _(that’s how you know the water’s boiling, right…?)._  

After about two minutes of staring into space, Peter felt his eyelids start to get heavier. It was as if a ton of bricks were piling up on top of his eyelids and slowly but surely forcing them further and further down. The analogy sent a furious chill down his spine and his poor heart thumped against his chest for a few seconds. His lungs burned and, for a moment, the only thought in his mind was the single word _‘building, building, building-’_ but he shook it off.

“Come on, just _boil_ already,” the boy basically pleaded at the pot. “You don’t need to wait for a dramatic entrance.”

“You know, you might want to raise the temperature if you actually want that to boil, instead of letting it simmer at room temperature.”

The sudden emergence of the familiar, deep female voice sent Peter’s head snapping over to its origin - no doubt with bulging eyes and an unnervingly wide smile. “Ms. Romano- uh, Ms. Natasha! Hey! Hi! How are you doing? _Personally I’m pretty great but is it just me or is it a little warm in here haha yeah so anyways uh how are you doing?”_

After the words fell from his mouth like hot lava, the boy’s eyes trailed down to the material of his pants and the cuffs and neckline of his sweatshirt, that were currently stained with the slowly but surely growing patches of blood. Damn it. He must have re-opened the wounds from shifting around so much during his coffee-making attempt. 

Natasha’s brows raised as she leaned against the island in the center of the room, a few feet away from the boy she had met just over three weeks ago now. In that amount of time, Peter had been spending more and more time at the Compound for a few hours sporadically during weeknights (apparently he had a huge AP chemistry project that he wanted to blow out of the water), and he had actually spent a weekend there, too. It was a strange thing to admit, but Natasha actually enjoyed seeing the kid around the building during his little visits. Whenever he was there, and Natasha strolled into the kitchen during the middle of the night for whatever reason, she would always see the boy sitting at the kitchen table, head in the middle of a textbook and his attention transfixed on its contents. It was… sweet. 

“I’m alright,” Natasha drawled, subtly scanning her eyes over the boy’s body and her eyes ever so slightly narrowed upon seeing the darkened shades of red that littered his clothes. Was he bleeding? How? What the hell happened? Despite wanting to know how and why and _who_ had hurt Peter, Natasha decided to hold her tongue for a moment. The boy seemed… shaken. She knew better than to demand answers and inadvertently make him feel like a defenseless animal trapped in a corner. “Need some help with that?” she asked, gesturing toward the not-so-boiling, boiling water.  

Peter bit his lip, not really expecting _that_ response from the woman. “Uh, y-yeah, that would be awesome, thanks,” he replied, though his voice was smaller and much less confident than it was at first. The adrenaline was quickly wearing off, and the pain seemed to increase with each second that he sat idly on the counter. Every time his heart beat, it hurt. The blood pumping inside of him felt like a new round of punches to his face; a new graze of a knife against his shins; a new rough hand yanking his shoulder out of place. He _needed_ to go someplace where his screams of pain wouldn’t wake up the whole compound, because right now, Peter felt like he was going insane. Literally. 

Natasha let a strategical smile of reassurance grace her lips as she walked up to the counter that the boy was sitting on, cranking up the heat on the stove and dumping out some of the excess coffee grounds. As she worked, eyes focused on the marble countertop, she decided to strike up a conversation in the hope of at least learning the extent of Peter’s injuries. “So-” her voice was gentle and undemanding. “How’s your chemistry project coming along? I didn’t hear you working in the labs earlier tonight. I thought you took a sick day or something, _Petya_.” 

Peter let a soft chuckle fall from his mouth at the woman saying his name in Russian. It was certainly welcome - at least it served as a minor distraction from the incessant pain all over his body. Natasha was always good at helping his mind switch away from the bad topics. “Oh, yeah, it’s actually almost done! I just have to perform the experiment one more time - just to make sure my results are consistent - and import the balanced equations into my lab report, and that should be it.”

Natasha nodded as she listened, but was almost disappointed as he pointed out that he was almost done. That probably meant he wouldn’t be spending as much time at the Compound during the week - though the thought of him getting more _much needed_ rest at home brought a bit of comfort back. “Hey, nice work, kiddo! I bet Tony’s itching to see what new genius experiment you’ve been concocting down there. He doesn’t shut up about it, you know - it’s all he talks about now that he knows I’ve met his _‘prized intern’_ and am well on my way to stealing you from him,” the woman teased - and under normal circumstances she would have poked him in the side, but his limp arm seemed to be wrapping around a sore spot on his ribcage. 

Peter grinned, continuing to watch Natasha maneuver the coffee machine’s contents as the water finally drew to a boil. “Yeah, Mr. Stark is always trying to sneak back into the lab after I lock him out. I keep telling him that it’s a _surprise,_ but I don’t think he knows what that means.”

“That, or he’s just naturally thick-skulled.” The boy’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I dunno. I mean, his head seems pretty normally shaped to me, but-” he started, but was cut off by a snickering Natasha, who was pouring the hot water into the machine. 

“It’s an expression, _malen'kiy._ He doesn’t literally have a thick skull.”

And, as Natasha poured the fresh coffee into two mugs - one with a picture of unicorns grazing in a field of daisies as a rainbow bloomed overhead, and the other just plain black - Peter found himself completely forgetting that he had several different injuries that were _still_ untreated and continued to bleed beneath his clothing. Natasha handed him his unicorn mug, which he graciously accepted with a long swig of the unsweetened mixture, and swiftly hopped off of the counter. Yeah… it wasn’t Peter’s smartest idea. His feet connected to the floor as a sharp wince flew out of his mouth and his knees exasperatedly buckled, but Natasha caught him in her gentle arms before he could reach the ground. 

The woman softly guided him to the floor and propped him up against the cabinets with an unreadable look on her face. If Peter could have read it, however, he would have seen nothing but concern and shock written all over it. As Natasha let her hands fall from his underarms, she felt a sticky substance coating them, and pursed her lips as she saw a palm full of blood. Peter’s blood.

 _Crap, crap, crap_ , the kid thought to himself. _Now that she knows what’s wrong with me, she might find out how fast I heal, too!! CRAP!! DOUBLE CRAP!!_

“D-Don’t worry, i-it’s not as bad as it looks,” the kid stuttered, eyes practically begging for the woman to hear him out. “I just have a few scratches, and my shoulder’s a little beat up, and maybe my legs, too, but that’s it!” 

Natasha sighed, shaking her head at the boy in front of her, really struggling to maintain her calm composure. “That really doesn’t sound like you’re okay _at all,_ Peter. Come here, let me see.”

Peter bit his lip as his eyes met hers. Her cool green eyes looked so _warm_ all of a sudden, and it was a little jarring for the boy. He thought the Black Widow was awesome either way, but he had never expected her to care this much about him, especially since they’ve only known each other for less than a month.

He struggled to unzip his large sweatshirt because of his shoulder and let out a whimper of frustration. Natasha was intently watching his facial expressions and gently moved his hand away from the zipper, and rather started removing it for him. She was careful not to touch the parts of him that seemed to be tender as she unzipped the hoodie and led his uninjured arm out of it first, before sliding the rest of it off of the obviously hurt one. The boy’s left arm was completely limp and his clavicle protruded from his t-shirt at an unruly angle. Natasha felt her stomach churn - not for herself, but for the grimacing boy in front of her, as his own injuries became more apparent to himself. 

Natasha noticed the large blood stains on Peter’s shirt and noticed that most of them were around his stomach and chest areas. “Do you mind if I take your shirt off?” she asked, not wanting to overstep her boundaries or make the kid feel uncomfortable in any way. “These might need stitches, Pete, so I can easily go wake up Bruce and ask him to help, if that’s what you want.”

Peter’s eyelids shot open as he shook his head furiously. “No! No, please don’t wake him or Mr. Stark up, _please_. I-I don’t want them to worry about me - I’m barely even hurt,” he begged, attempting to wriggle his shirt off of his body. 

Natasha swiftly reached out to grab the boy’s hand so that he wouldn’t injure himself even more, wrapping her warm, slender fingers around Peter’s cold, shaking ones. “Okay, alright. Hey, look at me.” her calm voice cooed, and the boy hesitantly obliged. “It’s just you and me here, okay? Here, let me take a look,” she said, and finished peeling his blood-soaked shirt off of his form.

Thankfully the cuts had already started to heal, so they didn’t look as bad as they should have. Natasha studied them, eyebrows slightly furrowing at how cinched in they appeared to be already, as if there were loose, almost nonexistent stitches present. “You’re lucky - no stitches for you today.” She stood up for a second, grabbing one of the medical kits that were stashed randomly around the Compound, and placing it on the ground in front of the boy. 

Worlessly, Natasha took out a few cotton balls and some Hydrogen Peroxide and got to work, gently dabbing the open wounds and wiping the dried blood off of his chest. There they sat for about fifteen minutes, with Peter’s eyes forcing themselves shut every so often, and Natasha would stop for a few seconds and let him have a moment to recuperate, then got back to work. Her free hand looped with the kid’s, and he would occasionally grab it when the stinging and the added pain from his shoulder became too much. Honestly, Peter felt slightly out of his element having this trained, badass assassin-spy-agent-turned-Avenger cleaning the cuts that littered his reddened, exposed chest.  

After what felt like an eternity of hell, Natasha finally cleaning and patching up _all_ of the cuts on the boy’s chest, he let out a sigh of relief and his upturned eyebrows seemed to relax. The woman sat up on her knees, her gaze trailing over to Peter's. God, he looked so... young - so young and scared and hurt, and yet so full of _hope_ and _happiness_ and _life_. Seeing him like this made her heart palpitate. 

Her palm cupped the boy’s pale cheek as she tried to garner his attention without spooking him. “I need to reset your shoulder sooner rather than later,” she stated, and tried to make her voice as void of emotion as possible, but that same feeling of concern still managed to poke through, no matter how hard she tried to keep it at bay. “It’ll only hurt for a second, and then I guarantee the relief will be worth it. I’ve done this for Clint more times than I’m sure he’d like to admit.”

Peter’s deep brown eyes peered up at Natasha with more apprehension than all of the forced confidence he could muster up. “Okay. Just… make it quick. I’ve, um, never done this to my shoulder before.” 

Natasha nodded, rubbing a few reassuring circles onto the boy’s cheek before helping him stand up. She walked over to a separate cabinet and grabbed one of the many arm slings that Tony kept on standby for when any one of his new inventions backfires and sends him barreling toward the ground. The woman threw it onto the counter and moved to stand in front of the shaky boy who seemed to be slowly spacing out of reality. “Just turn your head away - you’ll be okay. You know I’ve got you, _malysh_.” 

With a deep breath, Peter nodded, feeling as if he would throw up any second now. Natasha grabbed his wrist and quickly brought it up to a ninety-degree position, began to twist it in a hand-shake motion, brought it up to a one-hundred-twenty-degree angle and pulled. As Peter let out a mangled cry of pain, his legs turned to jelly and he doubled over, falling straight into Natasha’s receptive arms. The woman quickly brought Peter’s injured arm down and crossed it over his stomach as she guided him into her warm embrace, tucking the boy into the crook of her neck as she held him in place. She shushed him as she swayed back and forth, placing a hand on the back of his head as it rested on her soft chest, listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. 

“Shh, shh, you’re okay, _detka_ ,” Natasha continued to whisper, holding him to her chest until the initial shock seemed to fade away and she helped him sit back down on one of the kitchen table chairs. After a few unbearable seconds, she finally let the question through her gritted teeth. “Who did this to you?”

Snapping out of his pain-induced daze, the boy felt his mouth go dry. _Peter, whatever you say, do NOT let your BIG MOUTH mention ANYTHING about a BIG ROBBER DUDE with a REAL HATE for SPIDERS_ , he internally berated himself, hoping that the cloudiness of his senses wouldn’t come back to haunt him any time soon. 

“I-I just, uh, got into a fight. You know, angsty teen stuff and all that,” the boy awkwardly chuckled, mustering up his best troublesome face - though it made Natasha want to wrap him up in bubble wrap more than anything.

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest as she stared down at him. “Peter, you are the least ‘angsty teenager’ I have ever met in my entire life, so excuse me if I find it hard to believe that you started a fight with someone for no apparent reason.”

Peter couldn’t stifle his groan in time before it tumbled from his lips. “Can we please just drop it?" 

Natasha bit her tongue, perhaps both in frustration and anger at the person who did this, and looked as if she wanted to pull out one of her many weapons and stand guard by his side at all times. “No, Peter, we cannot just drop this. I just had to clean at least _fifteen_ different gashes all over your body and reset your _dislocated shoulder_ \- and you still might have lacerations to your legs that I haven’t seen yet. Whatever happened to you, kid, I promise I won’t tell another soul if you don’t want me to. I just want to know what the hell sent you stumbling into the Compound in the middle of the night, so that I can go _kill_ whoever or whatever it was. No one hurts a kid of mi-” she cleared her throat, “ _a kid_ , and gets away with it.”

Peter sniffled, letting his head fall onto his uninjured arm that rested on the kitchen table. “I-It’s nothing! Seriously! It’s not a big deal, Ms. Nat. I got out of school and went to go grab some lunch, and this, uh, pretty big guy tried to take some money from the cashier. I go to this place a lot and the owners are always super nice to me, so I couldn’t just let this random guy steal from them, you know? So, I just, uh, kept him occupied until the police got there,” Peter uttered between shaky breaths, making sure to keep his eyes trained on the ground for fear that Natasha would yell at him for being so stupid. The thing is… he wasn’t even lying. That was exactly what happened, minus the parts where, you know, he was Spider-Man. “See? Not a big deal at all.”

Natasha softly sighed, quite honestly not even knowing how to respond. That was _not_ what she was expecting in the slightest. Bullies, maybe - bratty, asshole kids that pick on the kindhearted, doe-eyed ones that have never done anything malicious in their entire lives. But never in a million years did the woman think that Peter would willingly put himself in the middle of a potentially fatal situation, purely out of the goodness of his soul. 

_Ha. if only she knew…_

“Ms. Natasha? Thanks for… everything. I’d probably curled up on the floor of my room if it wasn’t for you. So, thanks.”

Her face softened even more, if that was possible, and she shifted her weight to only one of her legs. “You don’t need to thank me, _malyshka_ ,” the woman uttered, grabbing the sling from the counter and slowly guiding Peter’s arm into it and then looping the strap around his neck. “And I told you to call me Natasha, or Nat, if you’re looking for a nickname - not Ms. Natasha. It makes me sound old,” she teased, and the simple look in her eyes spoke more volumes to the boy than words ever could have.

Peter chuckled, and gathered enough strength to stand up from the wooden chair. With a breath, he walked right over to the redheaded woman and didn’t stop until he could lean into her build and lay his head onto the safety of her chest, one more time. He just wanted one more second where he didn’t feel like the world was out to get him - where he let someone just hold him until his lungs stopped burning with the guilt of all of the people he couldn’t save. Obviously, Natasha didn’t know any of this, but there was something about the woman that made Peter feel _okay_.

Natasha seemed slightly taken aback by the kid’s sudden hug, as her muscles tensed and all of the atoms that she was composed of seemed to question what was actually happening. Catching the kid after his legs gave out, or holding him in place after resetting his shoulder were their own separate entities, but actually receiving purposeful affection from someone was… odd. But perhaps not in a bad way.

Slowly, Natasha let her hands link around Peter’s still exposed back and let him stay in place for as long as he needed (which, he definitely seemed to). The woman’s hands gently rubbed various patterns and shapes onto the kid’s back, and she could feel his cold skin practically soaking up her body’s warmth. Peter continued to nuzzle his cheek into the crook of Natasha’s neck so that her head rested atop his, and for the first time in a while, he did feel okay.

“So, what did you tell Friday to let you up here without alerting Tony?”

Peter’s tongue clicked against the front of his teeth. “...I told her to take a spa day.”

Natasha paused, her mouth opening to respond before shutting just as quickly. A chuckle promptly fell from her lips and she shook her head, chin slightly grazing the boy’s ear. “You told Tony’s multibillion-dollar automated intelligence system to… take a spa day?”

Peter bit his cheek as he took a second to itch his forehead with the hand of his uninjured arm. “Yes, yeah, I did do that.”

And when the vibrations from the woman’s laughs ceased to rumble against the boy’s head, he finally pulled away from the warm embrace, if only because the exhaustion was finally starting to catch up with him. He easily could have stayed tucked under Natasha’s chin for the rest of the night, but he didn’t think the woman would like that too much, so he decided that passing out in his own bed would be a good enough second choice. 

“Here,” the woman stated, pulling out a bottle of Advil from her back pocket and offering up a pill to the _extremely_ grateful kid. “I’ll give you another one when you wake up - your liver will thank me. As for the cuts on your legs that I _know_ are there just from the way you’re standing, take the med-kit and use the Hydrogen Peroxide first, then the neosporin, then the gauze, and you should be fine,” Natasha continued, handing him his dirty clothes and the rest of the unused medical supplies. “And the rest of the team knows you’ll be here, too, so feel free to hobble down the stairs for breakfast, and maybe take a day off from your interning duties. I’ll reserve the couch for you." 

Even though his injuries would be more than halfway healed by then (not that Natasha knew that), Peter couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face - or, God, even the stinging in the tear ducts of his eyes. He was just so… well, he didn’t quite know a word that could describe it, but it was a good feeling. 

It was definitely a good feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Petya - Peter  
> Malen'kiy - little one  
> Malysh - kid  
> Detka - baby  
> Malyshka - kiddo
> 
> So... this was a lot longer than expected, and I actually wrote most of it tonight lol. I had about 700 words at 7:55pm, and it's now 12:40am lol. I've been writing a lot for my Wattpad fics, so that's kinda why this took a while. Sorry :( 
> 
> Butttt, nonetheless, I hope you guys enjoyed this! School starts on September 4th for me, and I'm gonna be a junior (UGHHHHH), and I'm also doing all IB and AP classes, so i'm going to be having quite the stressful next 2 years. I'll definitely fit in tome for writing though, so don't even worry about that. If I have to pull an all-nighter to get updates out, then so be it! Cuz I have a bunch more soft Nat fics that I'm working on, so prepare yourselves for: major angst, major fluff, major softie!Nat, major moma!Nat moments, and everything of the sort
> 
> 'Til next time! :)


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